Low-code to the rescue – in the digital talent war

We live in an increasingly digital world, and businesses and public sector organizations all over want to invest in digital systems and processes that transform how they serve customers. The end-goal is to offer customers (or citizens) simpler, faster and more convenient services—while at the same time reducing costs through process improvement.

Yet Forrester warns us that “digital skills are in short supply, “with only 16% of firms globally reporting that they have the skills and capabilities necessary to deliver digital transformation.”

Essential digital skills are lacking, and at the same time the competition is heating up, with trendy startups and digital agencies poaching what few digital savants are available. When the likes of Snapchat are offering $500K compensation packages to new graduate hires, how can enterprises compete?

Lowering the technology bar

Unless you can magically create a legion of digitally skilled graduates—and somehow get to them before the competition does—your only answer is to lower the technology bar. But it’s easy to imagine how doing so could render your digital apps and services too basic and limited to compete.

This doesn’t have to be the case, however. A new breed of Low-code platforms can put creative powers in the hands of less technical staff, more or less eliminating programming in favor of configuring custom business apps via an intuitive, visual drag-and-drop interface.

Low-code in action

Low-code platforms help you get less experienced staff developing new digital services rapidly—with training taking days rather than months. For example: government organizations have already begun embracing Low-code to achieve digital transformation goals faster, and more cost-effectively than expected.

Paul Brewer, Director for Digital & Resources at a UK local government council, began using our own Low-code development platform, MATS, to get staff more involved in digital development. In a recent blog he says:

“Today was a good day. The first 9 people began their training on MATS, the low code platform we have selected to enable us to rapidly design and build digital services. It was so fantastic to see not just folk from our new Digital & Design team but also folk from service areas learning how to design and build applications.”

Local government organizations have seen severe funding cuts in recent years, and are embracing Low-code to develop the digital experiences they need to succeed—at a lower cost and with a significantly lower “learning curve”.

Low-code vs native development

Low-code isn’t just making development easier. In terms of management and training simplicity, hand coding just can’t hold a candle to the efficiencies of a single Low-code platform.

And that’s just for getting off the ground. You then need security, OS administrators and technical architects to ensure your web experience runs smoothly in the long run.

Hiring or training all the roles required can be costly—in terms of time, budget and resources. Training staff to develop on a single Low-code platform on the other hand can help you get to market faster, and at a lower cost than ever before.

See how MATS can help

Paul Brewer will be sharing his experiences in using Low-code to redesign local services at a working lunch for public sector transformation professionals in London on 3rd of December. Read an overview here..

The MATS platform puts the power of Low-code development into the hands of a much wider cross section of employees, without the need to learn programming languages. Deployed in the cloud, MATS can help you quickly automate business processes and develop customer-facing apps at a much lower cost and with far less training than conventional development.

Check out what MATS can do, and see how it can lower the barriers to help you escape the digital talent war and start embracing the digital future.